If you don't mind, who was the seller on eBay?
This sounds a lot like what happened to me back in August. I bought a Pole Position Control panel that was said to be in excellent condition and complete. The picture even looked excellent. But when I received it, it was not the one in the picture. It was rusted, missing the gear shift, a complete mess compared to the one listed in the auction. I complained to the seller and he offered to let me keep the piece of junk, and refund my money, but I really wanted the control panel from the auction, because it was in nice shape and had the gear shifter I needed. Took several weeks of me bugging them, but he finally sent a decent control panel. Said he don't know what happened to the original??? I don't know how much you paid for yours, but I think in my case what happened was I got the control at such a low price on eBay, he didn't want to sell me a good one at that price. I did notice later that other people left him negative feedback for pulling the same stunt on them.